1. Technical Field
This invention relates to molding assemblies, and more particularly to a molding apparatus having a hanger member and a decorative insert member adapted to be secured to the hanger member without the use of independent fastening elements, to thereby form an easily installable molding assembly for a residential or commercial building.
2. Discussion
On buildings it is often desirable to include some form of decorative molding along the interior of a room of the building or along an exterior of the building where a vertical wall and soffit adjoin. Traditionally, such moldings have been manufactured from wood or urethane foam and secured either to interior corners of a room or along an exterior of a home or building by the use of nails, staples, etc. This method of attaching molding, as well as the materials required to make the molding, has several drawbacks. For one, moldings manufactured from wood or urethane have become extremely expensive due to the increasing cost of these materials. Secondly, since the moldings have traditionally been secured via nails or staples, the added step of patching over nail holes with putty, sanding and painting or staining has represented a significant cost in terms of labor and the time required to install such moldings. Lastly, traditional interior and exterior architectural decorative moldings manufactured from wood are subject to shrinkage, warping and splitting which can give rise to significant maintenance costs when such moldings are secured to the exterior of a residential dwelling or commercial building.
In some applications, it would also be desirable to removably secure a molding insert member at both its upper and lower edges to a hanger member, where the hanger member has been previously secured to a wall portion. Such an attachment of the molding insert member would even further resist environmental factors which might cause detachment of the molding insert member.
In view of the above, it is a principal object of the present invention to provide a molding assembly having a track member which may be secured to an interior or exterior wall and an independent, decorative molding insert member which may be quickly and easily secured to the hanger member at both its upper and lower edge portions to thereby even more securely affix the molding member to the wall, and without the need for independent fastening elements to secure the molding member to the hanger member.
It is yet a further object of the present invention to provide a molding assembly having a hanger member and an independent, decorative molding insert member in which the insert member can be engaged via a snap fit within a pair of spaced apart channels of the hanger member to cause the insert member to be supported along both its upper and lower edges, to thereby further improve the degree to which the insert member is secured to the hanger member.
It is still another object of the present invention to provide a track member which may be extruded from a thermoplastic and a decorative molding insert member which may be injection molded or vacuum formed from a thermoplastic to provide a relatively low cost, high quality appearance molding assembly providing the appearance of hardwood molding.